Some days, you need to step off the bow of your
yacht while dressed in your diaphanous clothes swirling around making a fairy
tale picture of sailing. You just need
to untangle from the shrouds and hunker down and not have a blast; but it's
okay, those days are more rare and everything evens out.
Before we leave port, we like to get in at least one
or two loads of laundry; you know, it's funny that I've packed so many clothes,
because I only wear about a dozen things over and over. I especially overpacked when it came to
winter clothes, so I'll be taking some of them home in January. But I'm glad I had them and they still come
in handy for some of these cold, early morning dashes under bridges.
Because Elliott likes to hang out at the lounge here
at the marina, I asked him to take care of the laundry. He also started a project: the coconut that he opened for us the other
day is now turning into a boat. He got
dowels to make masts and line to make shrouds (maybe he'll add a figurine
wrapped in a diaphanous gown for good effect).
He painted the bottom white and that was drying in the sun.
I decided to walk down to the local Publix grocery
store to do a fresh fruit run because, on the days we are underway, it's so
much better to grab a piece of fruit than an Oreo (though I did buy some of
those, too--hee hee!). I forgot how much
fruit weighs, though; I stuffed the oversized cantaloupe in my
backpack--oof! The other stuff fit into
three plastic bags (another error on my part in that I did not bring my better
bags for hauling stuff). So there I go,
huffing and puffing and sweating down Highway 1 while hundreds of cars go
whizzing by. I couldn't make eye contact
with any one because of the sweat stinging my eyes.
It was after lunch already and I'd been passing this
fast-food looking place for days on bike rides and other walks. As I came upon it this time, all of a sudden it
looked like an oasis. I knew there was
food and drink and potentially nice people.
I went in, dumped my groceries, and ordered up some chicken, black
beans, rice, and plantains. Washed it 
The food was so good that I texted Gary and said he
needed to get some of this good stuff.
Even though he'd been on the boat and Elliott in the
marina lounge (watching the laundry, of course), they both arrived within about
20 minutes. I'd long finished my meal,
but they got plates of similar awesomeness.
It was the perfect pit stop.
We groaningly rolled back to the marina and sat at an outdoor
table while Gary caught up a little on work, Elliott worked on his coconut boat
and finished (and FOLDED--OH MY GOD!!!) the laundry. (As I'm writing this on the balcony of the
marina, I can see Elliott at the dinghy dock rescuing coconuts from the
water--looking forward to more deliciousness tonight.) I took photos until my phone's battery went
dead and then I borrowed Gary's phone and took more pictures.
This is one of them, a hibiscus with the sun behind it:
When we got back to our boat, we saw that Sea Monkey
had arrived and was rafted up to Aladdin (Tom's boat). We put away those wonderfully folded clothes,
made a salad, and went to meet up with the other boats.
Tom is a load of fun, very smart and witty, and
honest. As he says, he looks like a
hippie now rather than the former Air Force man he is. The Sea Monkey family was there, too; they
have a younger son than Elliott and I remembered Elliott playing cards with
them at the Thanksgiving get-together at St. Mary's. The homemade spaghetti sauce was super
delicious, even though I couldn't eat the meat--I just scooped out the sauce--and
we had homemade bread from the other boat and I was given the recipe to try
myself. Just perfect.
Tom and Hite (Sea Monkey's Captain) already knew each other and had dinner together a week ago. Tom spoke about some people that he had met
and Hite spoke about some people HE had met and they soon discovered that they
were talking about the same people--US!
Ha, so funny, and it shows how ridiculously small this sailing community
is after all.
During the course of the evening, we came up with
amazing ideas for nautical inventions, several in fact. Believe me, they are brilliant, life-changing
ideas for boaters. They may come to
fruition, but I can't tell you about them or I'd have to kill you.
After the Sea Monkey family retired for the night,
those of us remaining sat in the cooling air of the Moody cockpit, laughing and
cutting up. Elliott regaled us with
stories of cars, Tom with stories of his work in aeronautics and sailing, and
Gary with tales of his sailing adventures.
When we started getting too cold, we retired for the night, hoping to
reconnect the next day before we left to start the bridge puzzle, this time in
reverse (not the engine, just the order of bridges).
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